


And All Your World’s Aglow

by noondaize



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Art, Artist Song Mingi, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Feel-good, Fluff, Jeong Yunho is Whipped, Light Angst, M/M, Painting, Soft Song Mingi, Song Mingi-centric, Yunho Wears Sundresses, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 08:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28348569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noondaize/pseuds/noondaize
Summary: Yunho supposes that artists of all kinds are as much themselves as they are their dreams, which would point its way to all the scars Mingi’s heart has that nothing discoverable in this world could have given him. Some things remain an anomaly. Mingi is one of them.(Through Mingi, Yunho finds that artistic genius is deeper than any gaze-deep analysis of dried up paint.)
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Jeong Yunho/Song Mingi, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	And All Your World’s Aglow

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there.
> 
> Decided to write what will (probably) be my very last story of 2020...weird to think this year was the longest ever and is now finally coming to a close.
> 
> I wrote this in honor of all of the people in my life who have done/do art. Be it in passing or professionally and ranging from all skill levels. Everyone is an artist in their own right but it’s also an interesting experience seeing it from the point of view of someone who loves and cherishes an artist as well. 
> 
> It’s not mentioned anywhere in the story (I might make a separate piece on it later) but Yunho is a poet/writer :) However that’s not what he does full time. 
> 
> Anyways, my apologies for the length of this note. I hope you will enjoy this fic! Happy holidays and happy new year.
> 
> -n.

“There’s what looks to be like snakeskin in the living room.” 

Mingi flickers his eyes up, hums, and immediately drops them back down towards his painting. Yunho feels himself smile, waiting seconds that feel hours-long for the realization to dawn on Mingi agonizingly slow. He was never one to quick wit or particularly well-versed in anything that even came remotely close to reflexology. 

But when it does finally wrap around him, the Aurora swirling between his eyelids and under stray locks of his hair— he nearly screeches.

“Why is there a snakeskin in the living room!” Mingi rises onto his haunches, knees completely doused in paint and creases of the skin when they rise. There’s an air of debauched organization that he exudes while creating, and Yunho admits he has a penchant for disturbing Mingi in his space just long enough to observe and appreciate him. 

A little cruel? Perhaps. But Mingi should know by now the ways in which Yunho lures him from his space so that they can be together alone. An older friend of theirs— a kind preschool teacher they lived a few doors down from named Seonghwa— taught him the method when trying to get his own workaholic husband away from the concept of working for longer than an hour.

(“Maybe it’s the strong belief with which they work that they’re so readily gullible,” Seonghwa had hummed into his cup of tea. He gave Yunho what could only be a triumphant marital grin. It was when Hongjoong walked in and pressed kisses to his husband’s nose that Yunho saw exactly why.

“But it could also be an innate part of them,” Seonghwa sighs happily, watching Hongjoong traipse over to the countertop so he could make himself a cup of coffee. They really were very gracious for inviting Yunho over and allowing him to make himself so at home within their space. In a sense, they had always been very giving. 

“He wants to come home to you,” Seonghwa whispers, “but artists struggle with knowing how to follow back the way they came. They spend their entire careers forging new paths— seeing and siting new ways to existence. It makes sense that sometimes they lose sight of their own.”) 

“You never change,” Yunho laughs. “There’s no snakeskin! We live in the middle of the city with barely any grass or dirt in sight, why would we have any snakes?” 

Mingi frowns at him, picking up his brush from where he’d dropped it on the floor in shock and spilled paint along the hardwood. He pays the puddle no mind, instead fluttering his eyelids like butterfly wings and sighing out the gentle timbre of a yawn. 

“I’m exhausted,” he says with surprise, “was I this exhausted earlier today?” 

Yunho walks over to his lover, settling low onto his knees as he brings a hand up to tussle Mingi’s blonde hair. There was nothing he could do to remove the remnants of tangible things— paint Mingi never did a good enough job at getting out, stains from past experiments that quite literally blew up in his face— or intangibles; Mingi was forever going to have ideas, words, sounds stuck within the confines of his nest of hair. Mainly because he didn’t know how to clean those things away or let them go, but sometimes because he held them dear regardless of how confusing and painful they were.

Yunho supposes that artists of all kinds are as much themselves as they are their dreams, which would point its way to all the scars Mingi’s heart has that nothing discoverable in this world could have given him. Some things remain an anomaly. Mingi is one of them. 

“You have probably been tired from the moment you woke up,” Yunho reasons with him in a tone so gentle, it feels like it’s a voice that’s barely there. “Because you rushed through only a quarter of breakfast and haven’t taken a break since.” 

“It’s been that long?”

Mingi glances towards where they keep the digital clock: bright, shining neon red that blares at them in the middle of the night where it sits on their bedside table. Indeed, it read late into the hours of moonlight. 

He hadn’t even noticed. He tells Yunho as much, to which the elder simply smiles.

“Your body is going to ache from this treatment. Let’s get you up and get you something to eat.” 

Yunho’s hands feel like salvation upon Mingi’s clammed up and calloused skin. With how hard he’s pushed himself for years uncountable, it’s no surprise. He’s bruised deep enough that most scars didn’t stand out against his natural curves. Most of the dips looked as though they belonged, nothing hinting that they were created from memories that would always burn below Mingi’s closed eyelids.

But painting helps. As much as it’s become his new form of torture that keeps him up at night and demands the majority of his body, it does help. It helps so much that he evidently spends hours and hours doing it without question, vision completely shrunken down to the single tunnel he’s found himself chasing the end of.

Yunho only massages the aching joints when Mingi finally comes to a full stand, some parts of his bones crackling under the change and attempting to rearrange themselves below his skin in order to adopt the shape of a normal human being. His muscles, however, protest loudly to the way he wants to shift. A part of his mind agrees with them— nagging in the very back of his skull that time he spends in leisure without working, without creating— is wasted time altogether.

Yunho presses a kiss to his temple as though to soothe all of the screaming thoughts underneath, silencing them with his warmth as he holds Mingi like porcelain.

“You need to take care of yourself,” Yunho chastises. But it’s gentle and sweet, filled to the brim and lightly overflowing with reverence and respect for Mingi. He treats both him and his work like a treasure.

Mingi smiles against him, remembering that all is not useless. If it were, Yunho would never lead him to it. Yunho would never lead him astray.

The voice in the back of his mind still continues to scream, but a piece of Yunho’s smile falls deep within the cosmos to find it and smite it just the smallest bit. Overflowing a medicine that cures the ill poison of Mingi’s doubtful thoughts, numbing away the pain and reminding him of his body and person that exists outside of his mind. 

And it’s enough for now. 

There are moments, few and far in between but existent nonetheless, where Yunho captures Mingi in the heat of his life. Most of the time he chooses not to bother Mingi, instead watching him work for as long as it’s healthy. There are times, even, where Yunho asks to sit alongside him and watch him work in silence. Those are the best days for the both of them, world stripped so bare and raw that the acoustics of their time together is made upof echoes from a brush. The smallest, irrelevant and negligible things become the forefront of their scene, painting their feelings in filters not yet visited despite how beloved they are. All of the actions of their normal daily life are set aside for their thoughts to wrap around one another in a warm embrace, sitting together and being reminded in the most profoundly ordinary way of their love.

Yunho aims to wrap himself into Mingi further, always. Little by little as they melt into one over the years, hearts still being trained and conditioned to beat within seconds of one another. As Mingi continues to move about their house like the fluttering passage of time, Yunho follows him dutifully. He molds himself to the bends of Mingi’s body as the artist acts on his own accord within his own set of thoughts. Yunho follows Mingi as Mingi follows his artistic ebb and flow, their train made of stardusted cars connected together by the string of fate. 

And true to that ebb and flow, to that dedication they both have that is as real as an artist’s natural calling, Yunho finds Mingi swirling colors on a canvas in the dead of night. In the hours untouched by both sun and moon— when the harsh cold of the empty and untraced sky begins to nip at their bones— Mingi sits upright on their hardwood floor and strokes apart the picture of his inner mind like a man possessed. Yunho watches him, with rapture and concern alike, as he silently creates exactly what he’s so captivated by within the confines of his head. Mingi does nothing if not follow the lines his mind’s eye has drawn for him, an obedient servant to the larger rope which tugs at him until he gives way with demure eyes. Yunho watches him, a certain form of captivation within his ribs that could rival Mingi’s own, as his lover pours out what can only be described as a piece of himself. A part of his soul bitten off like the very flesh from his body. And he creates with it something more abstract than even the concept of his soul itself. Makes it all the more mystical, and yet easier to understand by passerby. 

Mingi creates, in a sense, a form of himself that could be anyone. A personal thought or channel of empathy that could belong to anyone in many different forms. 

“Art isn’t characterized by the artist,” Mingi had said proudly. Yunho watched him patiently as he worked a shade of turquoise into the raw material of the canvas, lines fraying along as the paint supply drained and dried on the brush he was swiping over and over. “It’s characterized by those who can understand it. My art is meant for everyone— and yet, at the same time, it’s meant only for me. But I guess I could find a piece of myself in anyone, just as they can find themselves in me.” 

Yunho hadn’t known what to say, but he understood it well. He could feel it in the way the natural curvature of Mingi’s body gave way to his fingers. He could feel it in the way Mingi’s birthmark along his lower back had stayed the same beneath his touch after so many years. He could feel it in their love, which was as many parts Yunho as it was Mingi; as it was neither of them and both of them at once. 

He couldn’t communicate that though. So instead, he’d saddled up right behind Mingi in an obedient manner, and had submissively lowered his head onto the artist’s shoulder as he watched him paint. 

But he felt Mingi smile as he dug his fingers into a ticklish space below the younger’s ribcage, and somehow the understanding was mutual.

Mingi’s brain is as uproarious as it is abstract. 

If Yunho could, through the simplest of words and confusing facial expressions, describe Mingi’s brain, it’d go something along the lines of:

Thousands of prismatic hills, shaking and breathing with the Earth’s steady and gentle wind. Everything is peacefully out of place— where the grass grows magenta and the sky rains citrus flavored snow. Where one can sink into the fields, sprouting flowers from below their skin if they just lied long enough on the crisp wet ground. 

Mingi’s brain was equal parts odd and terrifyingly new as it was familiar and safe. A place that Yunho knew had known no bounds since its inception and was unlikely to learn any soon. A place where one could hide despite its lack of order. 

And to him, it was beautiful. Because of Mingi’s mind he could see and taste things that Yunho had yet to even understand the concept of. Mingi’s world held magic even fairytales couldn’t replicate, and even sweeter still was the way he looked at everything like warmth was seeping out of it. He was gentle despite his awkwardness; graceful despite the way he bumbled and giggled through the majority of things. Mingi was all the good of sunshine wrapped into a person’s bones and he made himself at home within Yunho’s most gorgeous of memories. He has always been the source of so much joy and life that it was hard to find him anything but magnetic.

And of course, to Yunho, it meant that Mingi’s mind was nothing short of beautiful.

As it turns out, he’s the only one between the two of them to share that sentiment. 

Mingi’s always hated his mind. His way of thinking, his eighth and even ninth senses, his ability to connect to ways of life Yunho hadn’t known existed yet. The younger has always had a disdain for it. 

When Yunho told him how beautiful and envious he was of Mingi’s mind, the artist had nearly lost it in disbelief. He nearly went on an hour-long tangent of all of the other things that came with such hyperactivity. There were prices to pay for his sensitivity and even the magic he saw in the world came with an innate sense of anxiety that rolled around at any given time. For all of the moments of extreme beauty and inspiration, there were ten or twenty more of dullness and exasperation. Mingi was physically exhausted sometimes because of his brain, and he told Yunho as much through tears of frustration that had started to well up within his adamant denial. Yunho had stroked his cheek so tenderly and apologized for what he considered to be insensitivity towards Mingi, and it made the younger cry in a disgusting mix of shame and relief. 

Art was his passion. The world was his muse. And yet nothing in his life had ever made Mingi suffer even half as much as living in a world where he was quietly left with the responsibility of making art. 

He worked, one by one with gentle hands, to explain to Yunho all of the things that made him ashamed or angered by his mind. He showed him paintings and sculptures he’d made and scrapped and made again. He showed him scars— both physical and emotional— that forged the person he was, but would never leave the memory of the person he’d been, and Yunho picked the pieces up slowly as he unraveled himself. 

There was so much, both of beauty and pain, and he wanted Yunho to truly understand that. There was no having one or the other. Mingi’s mind was a studio and a prison, and he didn’t know what he’d do if his most prized person couldn’t at least attempt to acknowledge that truth in its entirety.

But he’s never had to worry since then. Yunho may not be an artist, but in his own right the younger regards his mind to be something beautiful. Not because it had anything particularly worthwhile, but just because it was well-shaped and constantly kind. It was open, organized and clean. Yunho’s mind was a lot like the man who held it dearly, and Mingi understood it louder and clearer than anything he’d ever taken within himself since birth.

Yunho became his very next art form. One that was characterized by its own medium of love. 

The best part of being someone’s muse, to Yunho, was inspiring them in the smallest of ways.

Yunho didn’t have to do or express too much without Mingi getting the picture of passion and finding something new to translate. Artwork and discussions about the topic became a new type of love language they could both communicate fluently in. Yunho wasn’t an art critic or professional in the slightest, but he knew exactly what he wanted to see or tell and Mingi knew exactly how to create it. The paintings he made in honor of Yunho’s corner of the world did just as well as the ones he made for himself, and Yunho slowly learned through the process how much heart and self went into it. 

He respected Mingi both as a person and an artist, and helping him to create was a type of pride he was still learning to harness. 

“Your sundress collection is growing,” Mingi muses gently. He’s begun to pick up the habit of toying with the hems on Yunho’s aforementioned dresses, enjoying the way the fabric feels below his finger tips. Yunho has a creeping suspicion that it feeds some inner sensitivity to touch. “Is the idea of matching ones on the table for us?”

Yunho laughs, snuggling deeper into Mingi’s side and humming as they bask in the sunbeam that’s pouring through their window. They’ve been behaving especially like lazy cats lately, too happy to have their home all neat and orderly with the recent completion of Mingi’s successful exhibition. 

“I’m seeing matching dresses in the cards of our future,” Yunho says in a mock-serious tone. He loves the way Mingi’s eyes light up like the cosmos, a shooting star causing the smallest twinkle as he shifts in the light and everything aligns just right.

“What should we do for the design?” Mingi’s all too excited, adorably rounding out his eyes and pouting his lips with the words. He drips in a saccharine glow that’s more endearing than Yunho thinks he’ll ever know. 

The elder pretends to give it some thought, instead pulling his eyes closed and getting used to Mingi’s nails grazing the top of his thighs as he drags the sundress between his fingers. He holds it delicately, still, like flowers on the cusp of being destroyed without proper care. He’s always treated everything with such deft and careful hands, despite the way Yunho knows he struggles to not trip over his own feet. 

Yunho feels himself lighting aflame with a sudden idea.

“Have you done a piece on Freesias yet?” 

The way Mingi startles against him— body suddenly taut with alertness and eyes blown wide— makes Yunho want to kiss him all over. On every part of his expressive body that the elder has spent so much time examining and cherishing over and over. On every corner of his ripped up soul that still operates as though its whole. Yunho wants to kiss him deeper than even on his heart, but instead he settles for a gentle and quick peck to Mingi’s lips, passing it off with a small smile that emits the same from the other. 

“You’re a genius,” Mingi grins at him, aura blown wide with the fire of a thousand dying stars. Eagerness consumes him completely as he begins to go on and on about the hundreds of pieces he could make centering around the theme. His mind awakens with a gleam even brighter than the patch of sunshine they claimed, and Yunho is no fool to pass it by. 

He basks in Mingi’s warmth too. 

The hardest of all parts is watching Mingi fall.

And all things considered, it is often. Burnout is a real and tremendously addictive idea to the pressured mind. Where the gnawing feeling of wasted time remains in the back of Mingi’s head, burnout is at the forefront, leading the orchestral flow of his riding thoughts as their conductor. It assaults him, day in and day out, and pressing against it has become a habit he can only achieve through maintaining his energy. It’s the exact reasoning behind Yunho’s pestering for him to rest and relax, because he knows if Mingi doesn’t, he’ll crash. 

And seeing his lover go down that route is frightening every time. Because he’s always unsure if Mingi will come back again.

It always starts slowly, with Mingi’s sessions shortening in length and his attention being drawn elsewhere. Yunho watches the way the leash around his throat is tugged towards spaces of mindless rest and unsatisfying fixation, centered and focused on the smallest of things that normally don’t interest him otherwise. Mingi becomes unpredictably receptive of a vast majority of things, taking to activities and time-consuming thoughts that Yunho knows are spurred only by procrastination. And at the end of the day he comes to bed just as tired— if not more so— with nothing to show for it besides a heavy conscience.

It only gets worse from there.

“You’re awfully quiet today,” Yunho notes, watching in amusement as Mingi paces around the room collecting paintbrushes and rearranging them. He expects him to pick a few to paint as he always does, but instead he fiddles with them in his hands and looks at them with a contemplative stare, as though they’ll speak to him if he just keeps staring.

“We should put these somewhere where they’re not so obvious.”

Yunho widens his eyes, surprise impossible to hide.

“You love having them in the same spot,” he says with a disbelieving tone, “it makes it easier to grab them when you’re painting.”

Mingi looks up at Yunho with eyes shaded in hesitancy. He looks _uncomfortable._

“Yeah, but now looking at them just makes me feel...bad.” Mingi places the brush back into his tin of other ones, each separated by a slip of paper he’d slid in that was just wide enough to be a divider. It wasn’t the cleanest or most effective system, but it did the job well enough and Mingi would rather splurge his money on more brushes than a place to put his current ones.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Mingi sighs, dropping down onto their bed beside Yunho. “I just can’t seem to find any inspiration or...anything worth making art for. Every time I try to pick up a brush I feel burdened.” He kicks at the floor, his sock-clad foot sliding across one of the many wooden boards. “As many things as I want to paint, nothing speaks to me enough to carry through with it. It all cancels itself out and I’m left with an itch all over, underneath my skin and impossible to reach.”

Yunho hums, watching the way Mingi continues to stare ahead at his desk against the wall. His eyes continue to bore holes into his tin of brushes.

“Baby…” Yunho finds himself reaching up into Mingi’s hair, all the familiar pieces and parts of it greeting his fingers as familiarly as his own skin does atop his bones. He rubs away the knots that have formed in the locks from being tussled so often without a brush to smooth them out. “You’re doing the best you can, I know you are. But you can’t keep switching back and forth between working too much and not wanting to work at all.”

Mingi hums against his touch, eyes closed but still pooling with leakage that threatens to fall in cascades.

“I’m just not good enough,” Mingi whispers, “that’s it, isn’t it? I’m not good enough, because if I was I would always be able to consistently create and put out something new. What good is an artist if I can’t even stay dedicated to art?”

“C’mere,” Yunho says to him suddenly, tugging him along with his fingers in his hair so that he’ll settle onto Yunho’s lap. With his head gently pressed into Yunho’s knee, the other rubs his free hand up and down along the younger’s side.

“You’re not useless,” Yunho murmurs to him. “You’re more than enough. This line of work takes so much out of you, I know it. I see it every single day. You’re constantly battling between hundreds of things— the time you get to create, the will you have, how much you can handle— you’re always balancing every little thing just so you can do it at all.”

He huffs something fond, a piece of his stress radiating within the space between them as he surrenders it to his breath. A part of his selfishness is angry with Mingi for thinking so lowly of himself, for being so quick to resign to the notion of inadequacy— but the larger part of him understands it. He thinks back to what Mingi had said of his mind, of his thinking patterns and ability to cope with things. Being creative wasn’t an exclusive trait that held down only enough for art; it was a trait that seeped into every other corner of him and could heal as much as it could poison it.

“People love what you do,” Yunho smiles down at him, the sight of his lover in his lap looking so placated and eased satisfying a part of him he needed to be at rest. Knowing Mingi was well and taken care of was what gave him the biggest joy. Even more than being a muse, or a significant other, was the pride of knowing his treasure was safe and sound because of him.

“But people should respect that you’re only human. _You_ should respect that you’re only human. The person behind what you do is still only a person. Forcing yourself to create— and on the opposite end of the spectrum, forcing yourself to deny that you create to begin with— isn’t going to help you. You love art, but art doesn’t always love you. And that’s okay, because you’re only human.”

Mingi sighs, eyes fluttering open and looking at Yunho with a crimson champagne shine that’s inhuman. Yunho’s not sure how someone like Mingi could ever disregard himself— sell himself away to art so much that he forgets he is art within himself.

“Thank you for being there for me,” the younger mutters atop his lap. His adam’s apple bobs with the way he’s shifted onto his back, hands playing with the single one Yunho has let rest on the flat plane of his stomach. “I’m sorry if it ever seems like I complain so much for someone who gets to do what they love.”

Yunho snorts, leaning down so their noses are touching at the very tips, eyes nearly crossed as they try to focus on all the stars at once.

“If doing what we loved made everything easy, people would never have any problems. Just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s always going to be easy. Easier, yes— but not perfect. Nothing’s perfect.”

Mingi’s plump lips form a smile brighter than any mix of neon colors Yunho’s ever seen him make. His skin flushes a red deeper than any he’s owned, or painted, or made a comment on.

Mingi exists with more vibrancy than could ever be captured in anything else.

“Nothing’s perfect,” Mingi repeats Yunho words with a grin. “But this feels like it comes pretty damn close.”

The best part— of their relationship, of being Mingi’s muse, of living in a world full of art with his closest connection being to that of the most beautiful artist— is watching Mingi succeed.

As long as droughts ran, and as frustratingly hollow as Mingi’s bones were from constant wear— there are times of peace and prosperity in their lives.

Mingi makes a living off of art, something Yunho knows he’s never taken for granted since the very first day of what was nearly a rebirth. His job, his hobby and his love coincide like intertwining roots all based at the same stem of a flowering life, new and warm and _welcome_ into the world. Mingi’s life force was welcomed into the world with open arms. 

And it proves itself in every exhibition carried through meticulously curating, every piece sold and commented on and received. Received like Mingi’s warm heart plucked from a string in pieces; received like his embrace that he aims to envelop the entire world in. The way that Yunho’s seen some of his spectators discuss his artwork with eyes holding the galaxies within them makes a new form of appreciation spread throughout his body. This is what the love of his life does. And there are people who truly and wholly appreciate it. 

“My heart is tired on this one,” Mingi huffs— but it’s full, probably overflowing with so much completion. “It’s really special. I hope the client likes it as much as I did making it.” 

Yunho wants to make a humorous remark, something light and sweet about them spending their money on it for a reason. But when he makes to look Mingi in the eyes he finds glory, _victory_ , reflecting in the way he looks at the finished painting that’s beginning to dry. 

“They commissioned _this?”_ Yunho asks instead, eyes drawn to the interweaving of colors and stories that Mingi’s attempted to tell all at once. It’s busy, but somehow far from overwhelming. It’s just...complete. 

“Well, not this exactly,” Mingi shrugs, “but yeah, something like this.” 

Yunho laughs at that, blown away like the fragments of a dandelion in the summer breeze. _“Something like this,_ huh?”

“Mm, it’s a gift to celebrate getting married to his longtime boyfriend. They’ve gone through so much, you should have heard the story.” Mingi looks it over with pride, fingers wrapped around his brush like a lifeline. “People like them make me think true love is real. And making art like this makes me think that you can really find your calling.”

Yunho watches Mingi— in his entirety, knees bent down and probably bruised beneath his body. Yet despite the way his heart has emptied for the couple that will receive this piece, and the sure ache that resides in every movement, he still looks at what he’s created with nothing but adoration. There’s a wonderment behind his expression that makes Yunho want to see the world through his eyes one day. 

“They’re going to love this more than words can say,” Yunho tells him honestly. “This is...perfect.” 

Mingi hums to that, standing slowly and cracking every worn joint within him as he smiles at Yunho brightly. 

“I hope it makes them happy.” 

And Yunho can tell from his warm eyes and careful hands that he really does mean it. With all the sincerity in the world, and all the love in his heart, he really wishes for them to be well just through the simple transaction of art for money.

But Yunho’s learned a long time ago that what Mingi does is anything but simple. 

“I don’t know them,” Yunho says quietly; reverent. “But I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that much.”

They leave the painting to dry as they talk about their dinner plans, contentment pressing into their skin like the gentle pads of fingers rubbing away the day’s worth of work and then some. Mingi talks about the delivery and the placement of the painting, taking a short amount of time to fill in a large amount of details. Yunho listens to him as attentively as ever, indulging his own enthusiasm with the sight of Mingi shining underneath their living room lights like a diamond being hit with the embers of every star all at once. He is radiant, and Yunho is greedy for all that he continues to seep. 

“The Choi-Jung’s are going to be so confused when I tell them the final price,” Mingi sighs, “I know me and Mr. Choi agreed on the rest of the payment but this paid me well enough in emotional comfort that I don’t think I have the heart to continue with the regular prices.” 

Yunho laughs in amusement, welcoming Mingi into his lap on their old tattered couch. The other falls into him immediately, receptive and responsive to the soothing touch of Yunho’s mint-like hands as his colder skin rubs away the tension between the artist’s muscles.

“You’re too cute. I think it’s really sweet of you to do that, but for financial purposes don’t look into making it a habit.” He pokes a bit of the exposed skin on Mingi’s waist, lightly rubbing over it with the same finger to welcome the sensation of their flesh melding together. In moments like these the revelation becomes all the more real— this is their health, their wellness and success. This is what peace is to them, what it feels like to thrive after so long of not making it. 

This, to Yunho, is living art. 

“I won’t,” Mingi murmurs against him, starting to get sleepy as he sags against his lover. “Just wanted to do it this once. For love.” 

Yunho brings a hand up to pet his hair, tugging through the same old things again and again. The stains, the thoughts, the Aurora. 

“Of course,” he presses a kiss to Mingi’s crown, the only type of recognition he could give him for being royalty; for being a ruler in the smaller ways. “For love.” 

And in between his arms, with a body aching from exhaustion and yet always whirring with constant thought, Mingi falls asleep safe and sound. 

Yunho doesn’t know all of the art forms of the world, but he figures this must be one.

Because Mingi took his single existence— the only thing in the world he has control over, and turned it into a masterpiece.

And Yunho wants to do the same for the rest of his life alongside him. For their living art. For love. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Twitter! I would love to make some writer/reader friends to talk to: @sanniedaize
> 
> Comments and kudos are not necessitated, but receiving them brings me a level of joy that keeps my passion for writing burning like an eternal flame you’d be fanning. If you want to leave something I’d be more than happy to see it! :)
> 
> Be well; I will see you all in 2021.
> 
> -n.


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